


can't the flame come up to the moth for a change?

by forfree



Category: RPF - Fandom
Genre: M/M, i thought of this like as soon as i woke up the day before easter fdjsfsfdsncsd, it's corny and also un-beta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:38:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forfree/pseuds/forfree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Alright, you're starting to ask questions. Let's cut to the chase. Do you know why you're here?" The stranger asks.</p>
<p>"No," Jermaine answers, slightly miffed. "But I'd appreciate it if you'd kindly tell me."</p>
<p>"Seems like someone's a little hot under the collar," they say with a snicker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't the flame come up to the moth for a change?

Jermaine's eyes flutter open and he's laid out on his back. He stares at a white ceiling. He feels... Sedated? At peace? 

 

He doesn't know, his mind is a bit numb. However, he _does_ know that it feels sort of great.

 

He sits up and squints as he takes a look around the room. Everything around him is white, so much so that it feels blinding. His clothes are the same color. The room is void of any furniture or people.

 

"Ease up on the Clorox and consider redecorating," Jermaine mutters to himself. 

 

He hears a quiet chuckle behind him. "Thanks for the advice, Martha Stewart."

 

 Jermaine snaps out of whatever lull he and his brain were in and quickly turns around. He finds nothing.

 

"What was it you did time for, again?"

 

Jermaine turns to his left, where he's just heard the voice, to be met with the same shade of white and the same blank space that he woke up to.

 

"Let me think. Conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding..."

 

Jermaine can't believe his ears, because he hears them again, and this time whoever's talking is above him somehow. He looks up.

 

Nothing.

 

There's nothing only but for a few seconds before Jermaine feels the toe of a snakeskin boot nudging at his chest; it makes him lie flat on his back. His head hits the floor with a dull thud and he lets out a confused grunt.

 

They laugh. "Oh, can't forget about making false statements to federal investigators. How'd those five months in prison treat you? Did you teach any classes on how to spice up one's cell with a bit of color while on a budget? Oh, man, remember that thing that went around online about how Snoop Dogg had never been to jail but you had? That was so wild."

 

The boot lays flat on his chest and whoever owns it makes no effort to apply any pressure, so he's not hurt. He's pretty uncomfortable, though- this person, whoever they are, doesn't seem like the nicest person in the world. His eyes go up from the boot and to the leg of the person wearing it; they're wearing slim jeans, holey and white- not off-white but very obviously a few shades away from the pure and sterile shade of the rest of the room. 

 

When did his eyes become so much more receptive to color? Jermaine makes a mental note to look into things at a later time.

 

His eyes trail further up. Their shirt is raised slightly; he sees one half of the "v" shape their hipbones make. There's a number tattooed just above the slight dip that their defined pelvic bone makes in their torso.

 

_102585_.

 

Jermaine's gaze is fixated to the number for a few more seconds before he hears them clear their throat loudly. His eyes go right to the person's face. 

 

They can only be described as otherworldly. Their skin was a beautiful shade of brown; if Jermaine were to describe it technically, he'd say it was Pantone 724 or 1605 (how he can do that, he still doesn't know). Their hair was curly, bordering on unruly, akin to a controlled type of chaos. It was such a dark shade of brown that it looked similar to an inky shade of black and Jermaine wondered if it'd feel similar to gripping silk sheets if he ever got the chance to tug at it. 

 

Their eyes were a deep brown, kind but lit up in a way that Jermaine couldn't describe as anything other than trouble or recklessness. 

 

"I'm not angry, and I'm definitely not disappointed. I'd say I'm more surprised than anything, Jermaine." There's a pause before his name.

 

The stranger's voice pulls him out of his thoughts.

 

_How did they know his name?_

 

His eyes widen and he attempts to sit up, but the stranger puts light pressure on his chest with their foot and shakes their head at him disapprovingly.

 

"I mean, I was positive you were going to be like the countless other... new guys, for lack of a better term, that show up here," they say as they look down at Jermaine. "They wake up and they start screaming, asking weird questions, trying to fight me when I attempt to be nice- yes, I can be nice- and break the ice with my witty banter and whatnot. Now that you're here, all quiet and observant, I kind of miss it, all things considered. But the break from routine is refreshing."

 

They reach into their back pocket and pull out a white lighter. When they light it, they take a moment to gaze at the flame the it produces, seemingly captivated by it. "This may just be me, and maybe I was some kind of arsonist in one of my past lives, but isn't fire fascinating? It helps us just as much as it hurts us. Still can't ask my boss how or why he thought it up, but I'm glad he did it nonetheless."

 

"Y-your boss?" Jermaine asks.

 

The stranger nods slowly, their mind seemingly elsewhere, and stares at Jermaine intently for a few moments. Jermaine feels as if they're studying some new species of an animal they've just captured; he finds it unsettling, yet he can't seem to make himself look away, even when they start to stick their tongue out and hold the flame to it.

 

Jermaine flinches, and the stranger doesn't. They lower the lighter and tip of their tongue is charred. Jermaine gawks at it for what seems like an eternity before they close their mouth and give him a sweet smile.

 

Jermaine becomes fed up with the silence and questions pour out of his mouth similar to a flash food. "What was that? Doesn't that hurt? What's wrong with you?"

 

"Alright, you're starting to ask questions. Let's cut to the chase. Do you know why you're here?" The stranger asks.

 

"No," Jermaine answers, slightly miffed. "But I'd appreciate it if you'd kindly tell me."

 

"Seems like someone's a little hot under the collar," they say with a snicker.

 

"Why am I here?" Jermaine asks pointedly.

 

The stranger bends down to be closer to Jermaine, their boot still on his chest and causing him slight pain with the amount of pressure being put on it. "You've been a  _very_  bad boy, Jermaine," they say with a quiet hum, their voice low and their tone too sweet for what they were insinuating. Jermaine was sure he could feel his teeth rotting as they spoke.

 

Shivers go down his spine and his cheeks heat up.

 

_What could he say to that?_

 

_What in the world could he say to such a handsome person that's putting a (un)healthy amount of fear into him with every single thing they do?_

 

Jermaine considers telling them to do whatever they wanted to do with him. He assumes that whatever they want to do can't be so bad based on the way they're talking to him.

 

The stranger straightens up and laughs. "You think I'm handsome? I'm so flattered. I get that a lot, actually, but it still feels nice to hear it from time to time. Also, I didn't know you were so easy- or maybe a better word is 'open?' I'd thought you would've told me to take you to dinner first. It's nice to know that I can add you to the list of people who'd let me have my way with them or whatever, J."

 

Great. This guy isn't only a freak, but he can read minds as well. How magnificent.

 

There's an awkward silence that hangs around for much too long. 

 

The stranger's expression softens and they take their boot off of Jermaine's chest. "I hope you don't mind me calling you that."

 

Jermaine sits up with a groan. "It's fine, do whatever you want. Like you said," Jermaine replies. "It's already known that I'd probably let you do pretty much whatever you wanted to me short of like, pissing on my face or something."

 

The stranger snorts. "I'm much too classy to do something like that. Who do you take me for? A depraved man who is perverted, so much so that he gets off on going to extremes such as those just because he can? Also, I could tell that your heart wasn't one-hundred percent in what you said, and that you'd most likely let me piss on you. I digress, though, we're getting off-topic here."

 

"Yeah, seems that way," Jermaine says with slight disgust.

 

"You're dead," the man admits, quick yet casual.

 

"I- what?" Jermaine stutters. "Like, 'You're dead,' like I've died, or like, 'You're dead,' like, threat-wise, like I'm about to die?"

 

"The former. I could kill you if you weren't and I wanted to, though." The man smiles as if he didn't just confess to possessing the ability to murder Jermaine if he were still alive.

 

Jermaine side-eyes the stranger and then the fact that he's dead hits him like a ton of bricks. 

 

There's a lump in Jermaine's throat as he swallows dryly and looks around the room as if he can find an explanation in one of its four corners. "So what am I supposed to do? What's all of this about?" Jermaine asks quietly, gesturing around him and to the stranger in front of him.

 

The stranger sighs and takes a seat next to Jermaine on the cool floor, hugging his knees. "I'll put it like this, I guess," he starts, "It's like that thing your old boyfriend used to say."

 

"Which one?" Jermaine asks.

 

"The one who smoked those pastel-colored cigarettes that came from who-knows-where and never introduced you to his mom in the three years you dated him."

 

"Oh, him."

 

The stranger speaks again, his voice matching Jermaine's ex boyfriend's in a frighteningly accurate manner. "You can't stop life from happening, and the only thing that matters is whether or not you take what happens in stride and how you do it."

 

"That was always so fake deep," Jermaine mutters, his words bittersweet.

 

The stranger chuckles and begins to speak normally. "It is, but what he said is true. You can't undo death, but you've got plenty of opportunities to take advantage of everything that comes after it."

 

"Can I ask you something?" Jermaine asks tentatively.

 

"I'm an open book. Can't tell you whether or not the moon landing is real, though, so don't ask," the stranger says with a laugh.

 

"What's your name? What's that number on your hip mean? Why do I suddenly have super-vision?"

 

"That's a good question- three good questions total. The number on my hip is my birth date. Super-vision?"

 

"Yeah. I can tell colors apart really well and stuff. Couldn't do that before," Jermaine answers.

 

"Oh! Dead perks. That's what I call 'em. When you die, you get some cool special abilities. Makes you feel like some kind of superhero," Miguel says.

 

"What about your name?"

 

"My boss calls me Number One- 'One' for short- and when I was alive, my name was Miguel. My friends up here just call me whatever mean name they can think of because I piss them off so much. Their favorites this week are 'Fuck off, Miguel,' and 'Fuck off, One,' and 'Asshole,' and 'Don't you have somewhere to be?' and 'Ugh.'"

 

"Miguel," Jermaine says quietly, reluctantly, as if he's trying to figure out how it feels and sounds coming out of his mouth. "I like it. I hope you don't mind if I call you that. "

 

"It's fine, do whatever you want," Miguel says, mimicking Jermaine and the comment he'd made previously.

 

"Knock that off, you're such a creep," Jermaine laughs.

 

"You know," Miguel says matter-of-factly, "You're really hot when you get all authoritative and straightforward on me like that. You should do it more often. Like, when you told me I could do anything to you? Me enamoré de un flechazo."

 

"Oh, so you speak Spanish, too? What can't you do, Miguel?" Jermaine asks. "What'd you just say to me, by the way?"

 

"I can't cook, and I said that I fell in love at first sight."

 

Jermaine hums appreciatively. "I've gotta say, Miguel, being as hot as you are and telling someone that they're a 'very bad boy' can have some pretty strong effects on them."

 

Miguel grins. "I know."

 

"I know like, one thing in Spanish besides the stuff they teach you on your first day of Spanish class," Jermaine admits.

 

"Go ahead, I'm all ears," Miguel says.

 

"Eres divino." Jermaine's pronunciation is absolutely terrible, but he still gets the point across.

 

"Really? I'm divine? Even after I stepped on you, called you Martha Stewart, and generally played with your feelings?" Miguel asks. "How sweet. Eres espectacular."

 

"That's all I get? 'You're spectacular?' Wow, gee, thanks," Jermaine jokes.

 

"Okay, okay, you want a  _real_ confession of undying love and devotion, J? I'll give you one: Desde que te conocí no hago  
nada más que pensar en ti," Miguel says with a smile.

 

"Translate."

 

"Since I met you, I do nothing else but think of you."

 

"You've only known me for like, an hour," Jermaine says with a chuckle.

 

"Still," Miguel says.

 

"Good, 'cause I'm thinking that I'm gonna be thinking about you quite a lot from now on."

 

"That's a lot of thinking."

 

"It's worth it."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hey i totes did this bad thing !


End file.
